Willi's

I've wanted to drink wine at Willi's Wine Bar in Paris, rue des Petits Champs, for a while, even more so after my helper at Mad med mere worked there a few years ago. We weren't disappointed. The wines were delicious, a 2004 Jurançon sec from Cahaupé and a Tokaii, 3 puttonyos - sorry, no details, I'll have to get used to taking notes - that was perfect with our rasberry dessert.

The food was good, the waiters were freindly and knowledgeable. I've more or less lost my desire to comment on the food and wine. Both were the way they should be, 'just' there, a part of the experience. Each playing their unique part. There are so many important condtions and choices, that make up the 'just', so it feels completely natural, completely effortless. Elegance, the goal of all my recording and analysing.

dansk

Polenta with butter and cheese

Antonio Carluccio writes somewhere that braised cime di rapa is good with polenta. It is. For years, I didn't like polenta. Until I started making it with butter and cheese. Real polenta, that takes 45 minutes to cook, has a better consistency than instant, 1-minute polenta. Not so much better, though, that I make it very often. Til polenta for 2:

4,5 dl. boiling water
1/2 tsp. salt
1,5 dl. good quality instant polenta
1-2 tbsp. butter
1 dl. freshly grated Parmigiano or Pecorino

Wisk the polenta in the saltet, boiling water until it thickens - it takes about... a minute. Take the pot off the heat and stir in the butter and cheese.

Eaten with braised cime di rapa and a little leftover rabbit and rabbit sauce. I thought the hot cime would be too strong for the rabbit, but they were fine together. The chili actually brought out the rabbit's slight sweetness. Mediterranean summer dreams, with a glass of Rosso Piceno, right out of the fridge.

dansk

Somebody's Grandma's salad dressing

'Old fashioned' salad dressing, eaten on Boston lettuce, one of the only kinds of green salad everyone but the odd gourmet ate, when I arrived in my adopted country 30+ years ago. It was a hard transition - one I never fully made, having grown up on all sorts of salads and a lot of crunchy, tasty Romaine.

But it's food for the divine, this cream and lemon dresing on a freshly picked head of soft Boston lettuce. Last night we ate it with chicken, new potatoes and raw, sugar marinated rhubarb.

9 tablespoons of heavy cream
3 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice
2-3 teaspoons of sugar
salt and freshly ground pepper

Mix everything and let the dressing sit for half an hour. Toss with the washed and thouroughly dried leaves of a head of Boston lettuce just before eating.

The wine was a 2005 Sauvignon Blanc from St. Clair in Marlborough, New Zealand. It's a heady Sauv, with more concentration and less acid than the Loire Sauvignons, that I usually drink - and love - with this kind of food. A real pleasure, though, and great with the rhubarb. Good with asparges, too.

dansk

More beans with ham ends

Same recipe as last time, but this time I actually have a little bag of ham ends in the fridge. And yesterday I stumbled on the season's first favas, I think they're broad beans in English. The first row is sown in the garden, too, for this summer's beans with ham.

They were good. Felt privileged, and opened a bottle of Barolo, Cascina Cucco 'Vigna Cucco' 1997. From Carlo Merolli. Seductive, weekday Barolo at it's best...
dansk

Riesling, mmm...

The pig was Asian inspired. Served with stir fried brocoli with black beans and shitake mushrooms. The rice pilaf stuffing. A salad of steamed eggplants marinated in sweet chili sauce, Thai basel, ginger, sesame oil...

The wines were a couple of German Rieslings with some residual sweetness, perfect with the sweet, slightly hot food. These were from Weingut Rappenhof in Rheinhessen, a Spätlese 1996 Alsheimer Fischerpfad, and an Auslese 1990 Niersteiner Pettenthal. The '96 was a great match, the '90 was amazing.

dansk